Green Home Tips

The responsibility of a greener environment rests on all of us. But it's easier than you think to make your home a little greener, and get back a little green in your pocketbook in the process. Below, please find some simple tips for greener living at home.

Simple Tips for Promoting Sustainability at Home:

• Replace your light bulbs with compact fluorescent (CFL) bulbs to save energy and money on your electric bill. Make your life a little easier by putting CFLs in hard to reach places, such as ceiling fixtures and enclosed outdoor fixtures. Compact fluorescent lights use a fraction of the energy and last up to 10 times longer than traditional bulbs, allowing you the convenience of changing bulbs less frequently.If one million households changed four light bulbs each, 900,000 tons of greenhouse gases would be eliminated.

• Plant a tree. By planting trees near your home you can reduce home cooling costs by as much as 50 percent.
  A single tree can absorb more than one ton of CO2 over its lifetime.

• Bank online and pay bills online.
  If every U.S. home received and paid its bills online, annual greenhouse gas emissions would drop by 2.1 tons.

• Recycle.You can make 20 new cans from recycled material with the same energy it takes to make one from scratch.

• Share the driving.The average commuter burns 340 gallons a year, creating a 3.4-ton cloud of CO2. Ride with one extra passenger and you've cut that figure in half. Find one more and you've cut it by two-thirds.

• Recycle paper and use recycled paper products.One ton of recycled paper uses 17 fewer trees and 67 percent less energy than non-recycled paper. Every ton of recycled paper saves enough electricity to power a three bedroom house for an entire year.

• Bring reusable bags to do your grocery shopping.The average American family of four tosses out about 1,500 plastic bags a year and each one can take up to 1,000 years to decompose. The bags are manufactured from about 12 million barrels per year of crude oil and natural-gas derivatives.

• Buy eco-friendly household products.If every American household used just one box of an eco-friendly powdered detergent instead of the petroleum-based kind, we'd save 217,000 barrels of oil a year – that's about 90,000 tons of CO2.

• Use the cold cycle in the washing machine.Wash your clothes in cold water and save yourself up to $400 a year in utility bills.

• Buying ENERGY STAR electronics, refrigerators, washers, and air-conditioners will make your house more efficient, cut your emissions and save money on your utility bills. Make your house more efficient by wrapping your hot water heater in a cozy blanket; it can reduce your emissions by 1,000 pounds of CO2 a year. Blanket insulation kits can be purchased for less than $20.

• Unplug electronics, battery chargers and other equipment when not in use.Taken together, these small items can use as much power as your refrigerator.

• A five degree higher setting on your air conditioning thermostat will save about 10 percent on cooling costs.

• Install an ENERGY STAR programmable thermostat and save as much as $115 per year.The thermostat also provides more flexibility than standard models, such as the ability to program daily settings and adjust heating or air conditioning turn-on times as the outside temperature changes.

• Reduce the amount of hot water used by installing low-flow showerheads and faucet aerators.Older showerheads deliver four to five gallons of water per minute. A new, two-and-a-half-gallon-per-minute showerhead will reduce your water consumption by one-third to one-half. A typical bathtub holds about 60 gallons. A top-quality, low-flow showerhead will cost $10 to $20 and pay for itself in energy saved within four months.

• Use microwave ovens to save energy.Microwave ovens are about 33 percent more efficient than convection ovens and 66 percent more efficient than conventional ovens.

• When landscaping your yard consider bamboo.Bamboo stores more CO2 and generates 35 percent more oxygen than an equivalent stand of trees.

• Reuse plastic containers.1.5 million tons of plastic are used to make bottles every year, a waste that could instead power electricity in 250,000 homes.
• To Read the full Story   Thank you University of Phoenix

Bring Your Buyer’s Representatives with you, a Realtor. Valley of the Sun Phoenix, AZ

New Home Buyers Goodyear AZ 85395 - Bring Your Buyer’s Representatives with you, a Realtor.

by Linda Wieczorek published May 18, 2010

One important, if difficult, growth area is new home sales and here in the Phoenix Area buyers who are searching for a Newly Constructed or yet-to-be-constructed home. Unlike conventional home buyers, these buyers are generally less knowledgeable about real estate than the HOME SELLER ARE, since the sellers of NEW HOMES are DEVELOPERS and that's what they do for a living. Because of the special complexities of a new home purchase, BUYERS are in desperate need of representation and counseling. Buyers NEED there OWN Representation.


Don't be fooled into believing that dealing directly with a builder will offer big discounts. It is a rare case in which this is true. Most builders who ask to work directly with a buyer will park the price of a new home up to include what would have been paid to the Realtor. Buyers who take advantage of these "deals" direct from a builder's representative will pay the same as they would when using a Realtor, but will lose the benefit of having an experienced voice working to help them with their purchase and any issues that may come up with the builder.


Realtors Are Your Advocate During the Process * Bring A REALTOR * The new Home Builder has you sign a waver leting you know that THEY represent THE BUILDER NOT YOU!

Employing the services of a Realtor, particularly when purchasing a newly constructed home, will give buyers an extra line of defense against many of the common issues that arise during the buying process.

Rather than battling the builder ALONE when problems arise during construction, your Realtor will take matters into their own hands and work to assure that any problem is corrected in a way that is suitable to you.

With plenty of mediating experience between buyers and builders, an experienced Realtor knows what needs to be done to get the desired results.


Realtors are also experienced in contracts and contract negotiations. While the wording of a contract may be somewhat cryptic to the buyer, a Realtor can clarify any wording that is confusing and work to get changes made to contract stipulations that are unsuitable. This will help to prevent misunderstandings and misleading contract terms that are binding, once a purchase agreement is signed.

Still Want to Go It Alone?

While some have successfully purchased homes directly from a builder, buyers should ask themselves if this is a risk that they are willing to take. In most cases, the peace of mind and protecting that is given by using a Realtor is well worth their commission. By choosing to purchase a newly constructed home through a Realtor, the likelihood of a positive outcome is almost assured, from start to finish. Call Linda Wieczorek 602-391-8246- AZhomes4u@gmail.com   WebSite

Housing market diagnosis: Bipolar, and Yes it Is

The article, Housing market diagnosis: Bipolar, from CNNMoney.com, reports that bipolar is what comes to mind when diagnosing the post-home buyer tax credit market.

There are two separate forces pulling it in opposite directions, and experts aren't yet sure which path the market will take. On one hand, sales and prices are rising, indicating recovery. On the other hand, so are interest rates and repossessions, which most certainly do not. And then there are the millions of foreclosures that need to be sold but haven't yet been listed -- so-called shadow inventory -- that could derail a real recovery if they hit the market in floods.

The prognosis? Negative short term but turning positive by the end of 2010. One of market's biggest hurdles is getting beyond the lapse of the $8,000 home buyer tax credit. Thanks to the incentive, buyers scrambled to beat the April 30 deadline, pushing new home sales up nearly 30% in March. "In the months immediately following the expiration of the tax credit, we expect measurably lower sales," said Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors (NAR). But there is one factor that has experts really scared: homes that are ready to be sold but haven't been put on the market. Right now, there could be more than 4.5 million homes in "shadow inventory," according to a recent report by Barclays Capital. This so-called shadow inventory is a recent phenomenon. In the past, inventory was either tight or it wasn't. But now, with home prices so low and so many foreclosures on the market, both homeowners and banks have been waiting to put properties on the market. But as more sellers put their homes up for sale, supplies increase, which will depress prices again. Rinse and repeat ad infinitum.

Here is a link to the article

http://money.cnn.com/2010/05/17/real_estate/housing_market_direction/index.htm

AVONDALE RENTAL Available NOW!! 10917 W. Bermuda DR, Avondale, AZ | Powered by Postlets

10917 W. Bermuda DR, Avondale, AZ | Powered by Postlets

Rent This Avondale Home in Garden lakes

Answers to the Most Common Questions on Green Real Estate Investing

Answers to the Most Common Questions on Green Real Estate Investing

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$1,500 North Phoenix Rental with Pool -JUST in Time for Summer

Kitchen Compost

If you're a composer then you know that sometimes it's feel like a chore to take your kitchen scraps out to the compost bin. Are trips to the compost bin getting you down? No one wants to run outside every time they eat an apple or chop some onions. Well you won't have to anymore if you get a compost crock. Well there is a great way to do just that and it’s a called a compost crock.

Compost crocks will blend right in on your kitchen counter top. They look more like cookie jars than a container to store your garbage in. And you're going to want it right there in your kitchen so that it's easy to fill. Peel a carrot or a cucumber, toss in the peels. Making coffee, toss in the grinds and even the filter too. Are you a fan of watermelon? The rinds can go right in your compost crock where they will wait until you have a free moment to dump them into your outside compost bin.

If storing stuff on your counter that you're used to putting in the trash doesn't sounds like a great idea to you, don't worry. Kitchen compost crocks come with replaceable carbon filters. They fit neatly into the lid of the crock and eliminate odors. No one will ever know that it's filled with stuff all of your kitchen waste.

Compost crocks come in different colors and are even made from different materials. It will be easy to find one that will look good in your kitchen. There's stainless steel models and also ceramic ones too. Now just because you have a compost crock doesn't mean that you can let the contents sits for weeks on end. Be sure to empty your crock at least once a week.


Compost crocks are easy to empty and clean. You can use a hose from the garden to give it a quick rinse over your compost bin. Or you can bring it back inside with you and wash it out in the sink. Getting a dishwasher safe compost crock makes it even easier to clean.

Stop feeling guilty about throwing away your kitchen scraps. With a compost crock in your kitchen you're on your way to making the most nutrient rich, good for your plants, compost that you've ever made. All you'll owe it all to your compost crock.